


Our Uses and Our Destinies

by the_rck



Series: Visions for My Company [3]
Category: Weiß Kreuz
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Implied Past Abuse, Implied Past Rape, Psychic Abilities, post-Gluhen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-11
Updated: 2017-07-11
Packaged: 2018-11-19 19:31:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11320152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_rck/pseuds/the_rck
Summary: Crawford had always intended to come back for them. That didn't mean anyone at all was happy about it.





	1. Sakura

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Quilljoy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quilljoy/gifts).



> Title is from Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnet III in Sonnets from the Portuguese.
> 
> I borrowed a few ideas from my fic Transitions and from Daegaer's Remix of that story, Transitions (The Truth like the Sun Remix).

Sakura was glad, later, that she had been in the shower when Schuldig made contact. She had privacy in the shower.  
   
He’d probably waited for that.  
   
 _//Crawford wants to see you.//_ The words were followed by an image of a park near the Koneko, a park where Sakura often ran. _//We know your schedule. Don’t change it.//_ Then his mental presence was gone.  
   
Sakura leaned her head against the wall and very carefully didn’t let herself think about what that might mean. She knew she’d have to eventually, but she wanted a few moments to pretend that she had options. Acid in her throat reminded her of all the reasons she’d hoped that Schwarz had forgotten them. _Maybe things will be different? Or-- Aya and I are both older and more experienced now._ She could feel the solid truth of that, and it gave her somewhere to stand. _We-- I still can’t keep Schuldig out._ That somehow didn’t seem as firmly true. It mostly was, but she felt the edges of the possibility that it might become untrue.  
   
Kritiker could protect them. She knew that to be true. She also knew that the price would be higher than Aya-chan was willing to pay. _I would. I’m pretty sure that Kritiker would find my ‘talent’ useful._ She didn’t bother to evaluate the truth of that. She’d done that repeatedly over the years. The truth that working for Kritiker would be horrible had decreased considerably since the first time she’d said it.  
   
“We will work for Crawford.” Sakura barely mouthed the words, but it was enough to give her a clearer sense of their weight of truth or falsehood. Sometimes, she could evaluate truth just by thinking a statement, but that was harder, less reliable. This time, the words felt off, not exactly false but not quite true either. “We will work _with_ Crawford.” Again, she mouthed the words.  
   
That was more solid, more certain.  
   
She wondered what Crawford could offer-- or threaten-- that would be enough to persuade Aya-chan. That was too open ended a question for her talent to be even remotely helpful. _Unless it’s simply that she knows we can’t hide her much longer. She still looks sixteen, and she forgets that people will notice if she doesn’t eat._   
   
Sakura knew why she, herself, would go. _I’m just following a different Fujimiya now._ She was less bitter about that than she’d expected.  
   
*****  
   
Crawford sat on a bench. He was scattering something-- breadcrumbs or seeds-- for the birds.  
   
 _He hasn’t even bothered to disguise himself._ Sakura hesitated and murmured to herself, “No one but me will recognize him.” It was true enough that she felt a little better about taking a seat next to the American. She didn’t look at him, focusing instead on some seated calf stretches.  
   
“You have three weeks, Miss Tomoe,” Crawford’s voice just barely carried to her ears. “After that, when darkness falls, they will come for Miss Fujimiya. They don’t know that you could be useful, so they will merely kill you.”  
   
Sakura felt her lungs seize for just a moment as she read the absolute truth in Crawford’s words.  
   
“I am not sure yet,” Crawford went on, “just who ‘they’ may be, but I do know that we can protect you in ways that Kritiker cannot.”  
   
That was not entirely true. Not entirely false, either. _Is it true enough?_ Sakura closed her eyes and looked at the parts of the sentence separately. _Did he run them together on purpose? Does he think he can confuse me that way?_ She was quite sure that he suspected who the kidnappers might be. _And he’s not nearly as certain about protecting us as he wants me to think._ She closed her eyes for a moment. “There’s no certainty of safety.” She kept her voice as quiet as his.  
   
He twitched. She wouldn’t have caught it if she hadn’t been watching for it, but he very definitely twitched.  
   
He threw a handful of whatever was in his bag onto the pavement in front of them. “No,” he said after a long pause. “But we are your best chance to stay together.”  
   
That, unfortunately, was true. Sakura pursed her lips. “And that just fills me with joy.” She saw no reason to lie to him. Schuldig would see her thoughts anyway, and if he didn’t tell Crawford, it would be because he thought he could hurt her more by holding the threat over her. “What do you expect of us?” She deliberately gave him an open ended question to see what parts he would answer.  
   
He glanced at her. “How long would it take you to pack? We can get you a window in the surveillance, but I think that anything more than two hours would be difficult.”  
   
She shrugged. She was pretty sure that neither she nor Aya had many possessions that couldn’t simply be abandoned. _Except-- That will be a challenge._ “She won’t leave her lizard. Most other things, yes, but she loves that thing.” Sakura did, too, but she wasn’t going to bring that up now. She fixed her eyes on the birds pecking at the pavement. “The difficulty will be carrying everything. We don’t have suitcases. They never wanted us to.”  
   
“If you are willing to have Schuldig in your space, we can address that.”  
   
Sakura would rather slit her own throat. _But not Aya’s._ She clenched one hand. “He can bring something for us to pack our things in, and he can carry the terrarium.” She had found that awkward when it was empty, and it decidedly wasn’t empty now. “How much of our stuff are you willing to replace?”  
   
“Clothing will take time that we won’t have for at least two weeks. Toiletries are much easier. Leave your electronics.”  
   
Sakura stifled a laugh. “We’re neither of us that stupid. Books?”  
   
“We’ll replace those. Online purchases.”  
   
She supposed he had some way to avoid having that tracked. “If Schuldig touches either of us, I will break his arm.” That was absolute truth, and she let her certainty show.  
   
Crawford turned to look at her fully. His eyes were wide.  
   
She smiled demurely. _What did you think I’d do with years? Running wasn’t going to help._ “I had strong motivation. I hadn’t expected that to surprise you.” _Asshole._  
   
******  
   
Finding that Hidaka Ken was also a guest of Schwarz came as a surprise. At first, Sakura was pleased, but there was something about his eyes and the way he held his shoulders that worried her.   
   
She tried several statements about him. He wasn’t a prisoner. Schuldig had been in his head recently, but that wasn’t why Ken was there. Not exactly. He could leave, but he wouldn’t, and she hadn’t been able to guess why. He was, at least, pleased to see her and Aya and seemed more than willing to stand between them and Schuldig. He hadn’t, however, been willing to talk to Aya about her brother, not beyond a reassurance that, the last he knew, Ran had been alive.  
   
Sakura and Aya had two rooms between them but slept together in one, leaving the other as a study, library, and work space. Sakura had the feeling that they would all be there for a while. Things could change, of course, but probability skewed toward staying.  
   
She saw no sign of Farfarello or of Naoe. She wasn’t quite prepared to ask what had happened to them. She was saving her questions for things that mattered.  
   
Schuldig mostly avoided talking to her about anything but trivialities. The one time he’d said something with meaning had been while he helped them pack. “I need to trust you at my back.” He’d met her eyes. _//I’m a sadist, but I’m not stupid. I don’t fuck with the team.//_  
   
Sakura had nodded because that was almost entirely true. She had wondered what Crawford thought they might do that would require trust and supposed that she’d find out eventually.   
   
Crawford spent nearly a week studying her while she and Aya replaced the things they’d left behind and found a balance in their new space, with their new roommates. Sakura had the impression that he was trying to figure out how much things had changed. When he did speak to her, she could tell that he was choosing his words with extreme care.  
   
At first, she couldn’t figure out what he thought she might do if he lied. Her leverage was beyond limited. Eventually, she realized that he wasn’t sure how much Ken trusted her and that that must mean there were truths she could tell Ken that would upset Crawford’s plans.  
   
But Sakura and Aya would die-- or worse-- if Ken left and they went with him, and the only way Ken would leave them behind was if he died. He didn’t trust Crawford that much.  
   
Sakura let Crawford squirm for another three days before she said very quietly, “I’ve no intention of slitting our throats just to spite you.” She made herself meet his eyes. “None of you ever thought much of me, but assuming that level of stupidity is simply insulting.”  
   
“I hadn’t realized,” he replied, equally quietly, “just how close your gift would come to precognition.”  
   
“I hate you. I probably always will.” She said it calmly. The always part might be a lie or might be true. She wondered whether the difference lay with him or with her or with some other factor altogether. “There’s something you want or need that’s worth the risk that I’ll find a way for us to survive when you die.” She almost didn’t need to weigh the truth of that.  
   
He gave her a sharp look, and she suspected he was trying to decide how much to tell her. Eventually he shook his head and asked, “Can you tell truth in languages you don’t speak?”  
   
She hesitated. “I haven’t had much opportunity,” she admitted at last. “There’s something there, but it’s largely binary. I need to be able to rephrase things to find the real truth. If I don’t know what’s being said…” She shrugged. “And I can’t do it at all if it’s only written in a language I don’t know. Someone has to say it.”  
   
He nodded and looked thoughtful. “You’re going to need to learn other languages anyway.” His expression hardened just a little.  
   
She read it as ruthlessness and knew that she wasn’t going to like what came next.  
   
“That means working with Schuldig.” There was no give in Crawford’s words.  
   
“If you knew this must be coming--” And she thought he must have or he wouldn’t have gone to so much trouble over her and Aya. “--why did you let him--?” This would be so much easier if Schuldig hadn’t ever hurt her.  
   
“You’re assuming that I see everything.” After several seconds, he sighed and added, “It seemed necessary at the time. As long as he played with you, we had an excuse not to kill you.” There was no apology in his voice, and she knew he was being mostly truthful.  
   
She suspected that the other means of keeping her alive would have been less convenient. Less convenient for Crawford, that is.   
   
“If we hadn’t substituted you for Miss Fujimiya in the ceremony,” he went on, “the world would be a hunting ground for creatures who eat souls. I am not an altruist, but I object to being eaten.”  
   
She shuddered as the truth of the sentence about soul eaters came through. The rest wasn’t wholly true. Crawford certainly wasn’t an altruist, but whatever he had feared, it hadn’t been being eaten. She raised her eyebrows but didn’t otherwise call him on it.  
   
“From here on out, Miss Tomoe,” Crawford said. “I will tell you my visions-- some of them at least-- and you will tell me which ones cannot be altered.”


	2. Ken and Aya-chan

Ken knew that some people considered him stupid. He was pretty sure that Crawford and Schuldig both did, so he wasn’t quite sure why they wanted him. No, he knew. He was willing to kill and, ultimately, disposable. He put very little faith in Crawford’s promise to only ask him to kill people who deserved it. _Been there. Done that. I’m not_ that _stupid. Kritiker lied, too._  
   
Kritiker, in the person of Takatori Mamoru, had declined to take him back after he’d gotten his head together. The retirement package had been more than generous, but Ken had had no idea at all what he could do with it. “Try to find peace, Ken-kun,” the man who used to be Omi had said. He’d made it sound easy.  
   
_I’m pretty sure the idea was for me to leave the country._ He couldn’t help feeling bitter about that. _Aya-- Ran-- always was better about seeing the writing on the wall than I was. I wonder where he is now? The world is big. I’d never find him._  
   
He’d probably have gone looking anyway, simply for want of anything else to do, if Crawford hadn’t approached him. He wasn’t sure he believed a word of Crawford’s sales pitch-- the idea of invading, interdimensional monsters seemed ridiculous-- but going with Crawford was much easier than anything else he could see as possible.  
   
He knew he wasn’t supposed to notice that Crawford hadn’t given him a timeline for this supposed invasion. He knew, too, that Crawford and Schuldig were easing him into working with them with the intention of getting him in too deep to be able to back out.  
   
They seriously underestimated his ability to walk if they crossed any of his lines. And bringing in Tomoe Sakura and Fujimiya Aya-chan had damned near involved a crossing of lines that broke the sound barrier.  
   
Ken had waited to see how Crawford treated the girls. Schuldig being an asshole was pretty much given, so Ken kept his eyes on everyone else. Aya-chan, he realized quickly, actually liked both men. Sakura, on the other hand, very much didn’t.  
   
There was something really weird between Crawford and Sakura. Crawford treated her like she might explode, and she watched him as if there was actually a chance she could get him to reveal his secrets. And Schuldig kept stepping in to keep Ken from talking to Sakura.  
   
As if Ken wouldn’t notice that.  
   
Ken didn’t want to talk to Aya-chan. All she was interested in was news of her brother, and Ken wouldn’t-- couldn’t-- give her that. Her brother had cut ties for a reason. Ken kind of thought it was a fucking stupid reason, but he owed a hell of a lot to Fujimiya Ran. Any other team leader would have ditched him a long time ago, probably with a bullet in the head.  
   
Still, talking to Aya-chan was _possible_ , so he offered to help her find replacements for the plants in her lizard’s terrarium. Some of those had not taken well to the new environment. Ken had made sure they wouldn’t just so that he’d have an excuse to talk to the girl. He’d made sure that, when Schuldig was around, his thoughts lingered on Aya-chan’s appearance and on Ken’s love for her brother.  
   
Ken wasn’t stupid, and he wasn’t wrong. Schuldig absolutely took that in the worst way possible.  
   
All Ken cared about was that Crawford let him escort Aya-chan to purchase plants. Ken and Aya-chan had both been adamant that ordering such things online wouldn’t work.  
   
Sakura had given them both an odd look and then backed them up. “They’ll be fine, Crawford-san,” she’d said, and suddenly, Crawford stopped arguing.  
   
Aya-chan didn’t look at all surprised when Ken suggested stopping at a cafe before going on to the store. Instead, she smiled at him and slipped a hand around his arm. “Sakura-chan says you won’t ever talk to me about nii-san.” She sounded sad, as if that statement closed off all possibilities.  
   
“He wouldn’t want me to,” Ken replied. “He’s being stupid, but… I have to respect that.” _Also, I have no idea where he is._ “I can talk about… other things.” _I can tell her about him by the blank spots when I talk about other things. He always said she was clever._  
   
She looked up at him sharply and frowned. “I will repeat what you say to Sakura-chan.”  
   
Ken blinked at her. “Okay.” _That obviously means something that I’m supposed to understand. Should I ask?_ He considered that while he found them seats somewhere with a modicum of privacy and then retrieved bubble tea for Aya-chan and some sort of protein fortified drink for himself. He had no intention of drinking, but it would look odd if he bought nothing. _If Crawford isn’t tracking my credit card… Or can he not do that without Naoe? If he can’t, that’s a serious hole in the team’s skills._  
   
Aya-chan met Ken’s eyes when he sat down across the table from her. “The things that would happen if we weren’t here--”  
   
Ken was certain she didn’t mean the cafe.  
   
“--must be truly terrible.” She raised her straw and then pushed it down again with more force than necessary. “Sakura-chan wouldn’t have agreed for us to leave the Koneko otherwise. She wouldn’t.” Aya-chan looked at the table for a moment then raised her eyes to meet Ken’s. “She thinks I don’t realize the dangers. She doesn’t want me to know, so I… pretend not to.” She made a face. “I have to do it without words, or she’ll know. That’s what they did to her, back before I woke up. She _knows_ things.”  
   
Ken stared at her for a moment. “I thought I’d have to actually ask questions.” He let his lips quirk in a smile that was entirely genuine.  
   
She laughed. “Nobody’s keeping me from talking to Sakura-chan, and Schuldig doesn’t much like the inside of my head. Not because of my thoughts but because I might eat him.” She sounded entirely serious about that, so Ken let his smile go. She raised her chin. “I have better control than that. If I did it, it wouldn’t be accidental.” She looked down at her bubble tea and didn’t say anything else for a while.  
   
Ken let go of his questions and waited for her to come back to the conversation. He was pretty sure he didn’t know the right questions to ask. When she looked at him again, he said, “Is there anything I can do?”  
   
“Stay,” she told him. “Sakura-chan says there’s some lie Crawford’s told you or some truth he’s hiding that might make you leave. That he thinks will make you leave. But the three of us, you, me, and Sakura-chan, aren’t likely to survive without Schwarz. Sakura’s been looking for a way out of this that doesn’t lead to something worse. I’m not sure she realizes that I know how hard she’s looking. She thinks I’ll be happier if I _like_ Schuldig and Crawford.”  
   
“Ah.” _So Sakura is making the decisions and trying to protect Aya-chan._ Ken felt a little uncomfortable and made himself look at it. _Oh. I assumed neither of them made decisions. Because they’re girls? Women. They’re women. They’re both over twenty now._ He rubbed the back of his head and sighed. “I’m not quite used to you two, either of you, as active agents.”  
   
She gave him a smile that reminded him of her brother when he’d first come to Weiss, all sharpness to hide the hurt underneath.  
   
“I don’t actually know where your brother is,” he said softly. “I’m nearly certain he’s not in the country any more. Beyond that--” He shrugged. “I don’t think he wants to be found.”  
   
She stabbed her bubble tea with her straw again. “Crawford told Sakura-chan that we’d never see nii-san again. She says he wasn’t lying.” For just a moment an expression of deep bitterness passed over her face. “She says he wasn’t mistaken, either. I don’t like knowing the future.”  
   
_But if Crawford and Sakura are right about one thing, you have to assume they’re right about everything._ Ken turned that over in his head. “Can Sakura lie?” He was pretty sure that, in this case, she hadn’t, but it might give Aya-chan hope.  
   
“Sometimes,” Aya-chan replied. “She lied to Kritiker constantly, after all. She also… Crawford told us to stay put, that Kritiker would protect us as long as we didn’t attract attention. She looked for ways out of the trap, but everything we could come up with needed an ally who knew things we don’t.”  
   
_The trap._ Ken hoped that his discomfort with that description of their situation didn’t show on his face, but he knew that it probably did. “Your brother can’t have realized--” He shook his head.  
   
“Nii-san is the reason Kritiker kept watching us. At first, it was because we might be dangerous, because Sakura-chan knew too much. Later, Sakura-chan says it changed. It was more about the assumption that we had to be protected.” She almost laughed. “We tested it. I went on three dates with utterly horrible men, and-- someone must have thought I was stupid-- all three had ‘accidents.’ No deaths, but each of them suddenly stopped talking to me.”  
   
Ken winced. He’d have expected Omi to be a little more subtle. _Maybe he didn’t review the cases personally? Maybe-- Oh, I don’t like that. But I’m pretty sure he’s the one who told Crawford where to find me._ “Naoe works for Kritiker now, at the highest level. He… used to be Schwarz. He might… Well.” He shrugged.  
   
“Do favors for Crawford?” Aya-chan said softly. “It’s possible, and it would mean someone was assuming I wasn’t stupid.” She frowned. “The very nice, Kritiker adjacent young men who came courting both of us after that were absolute overkill. There were at least a dozen of those. An infinite supply, I suppose.” She looked over Ken’s shoulder, not seeming to actually see anything. “I thought about it. Sakura-chan thought about it. She could have-- she can pass-- but it wouldn’t have taken all that long for a husband to realize that I don’t age. I can eat and pretend I need to, but I can’t make my body age. Not a one of them wouldn’t have turned me over to the R &D program.”  
   
Ken felt a chill. “I’d like to think Kritiker doesn’t do that.” _But I know better._  
   
“I don’t know a lot about Kritiker,” she admitted. “Just what nii-san told Sakura-chan and what she and I figured out.”  
   
“Kritiker’s just one arm of something much bigger.” Now it was Ken’s turn to look into the distance. “I think… If you don’t have anything else, you-- just you and not Sakura-- could go to Takatori Mamoru. For your brother’s sake, he might keep you safe.” He knew that Omi was gone, but he thought that much of the man’s loyalty to Weiss remained. “It might be worse than what Crawford’s offering, but Crawford’s neither immortal nor infallible.”  
   
“Takatori Mamoru,” she murmured. “ _That_ Takatori?”  
   
He nodded and didn’t elaborate. Neither of them spoke for almost a minute. Then he said, “So both of you have powers. I wondered. I’m pretty sure I’m just here to kill things.”  
   
“Crawford hasn’t told us yet what he expects us to do. Since he certainly hasn’t taken us in out of the goodness of his heart… Well, Sakura-chan worries about it.” Aya-chan didn’t quite meet Ken’s eyes.  
   
“He told me invading, alien monsters.” Ken let his tone convey how little he believed that.  
   
She actually seemed to consider the idea. “That would be better than helping Crawford take over the world.” She shook her head. “Not that he wants that. Sakura-chan thought he might, but when she said it, she smiled and said that at least it wasn’t that.”  
   
Ken thought about Omi, devoured by all things Takatori. “He might enjoy the challenge of taking over. I doubt he’d enjoy the administrative work, after.”  
   
“If it’s any comfort at all,” she said, looking very serious. “I’m pretty sure I’m here to kill things, too. I haven’t ever, but I could, and I expect Crawford will want me to. If-- when-- I do, I won’t leave a mark.” She spoke without any hint of emotion. “Mostly, I just take small bits of energy. People leak energy constantly, so they don’t miss a little. If I take more... Crawford may think I can torture people, too.”  
   
He reached across the table and touched her hand. “I can’t think of anything he’d get that way that Schuldig couldn’t get faster and cleaner.”  
   
She waited a moment or two before pulling her hand back. “Not for information. For scaring the shit out of people.”  
   
_Oh. Yes. That._  
   
“I will ask Sakura-chan about the monsters.” Aya-chan stood. She’d only finished about half of her bubble tea. “Sakura-chan thinks she’s protecting me. She’s not. She’s keeping me human.” She looked down at Ken for several seconds then smiled, looking for all the world like the cheerfully naive schoolgirl she wasn’t. “I think we should go on with our shopping now.”


	3. Schuldig

_//You’re playing with fire, you know,//_ Schuldig told Crawford after the front door closed behind Hidaka and the Fujimiya girl.  
   
Crawford didn’t even look at him. _//She needs a chance to feed on someone who isn’t one of us.//_  
   
Schuldig let silence indicate that he wasn’t buying.  
   
Tomoe looked from one man to the other. Then she snorted softly and left the room. After a moment, they could hear her on the stairs.  
   
“I mean with all three of them,” Schuldig said softly once he was sure the girl was out of earshot. “They will all back each other over either of us.”  
   
Crawford looked up from his book. “I’ve taken much bigger risks before.”  
   
“You had no choice!” _//We’d be fine, no matter what happened.//_  
   
“I would prefer better than fine.” Crawford gave the last word a contemptuous twist. He looked around the room, his eyes lingering pointedly on the wine rack, the entertainment center, the door to the kitchen with all the luxuries within, and, somehow, the very spaciousness of the entire building.  
   
Schuldig sighed. _//I get it. I like that shit, too.//_ “I just think they’re going to try to kill us.”  
   
“Miss Tomoe is the only one of the three with ideals.” Crawford marked his place with a slip of paper and closed his book. “But she’s also… pragmatic. I think that Miss Fujimiya and Mr Hidaka both still think they could survive alone. Possibly, Miss Fujimiya could. If she were ruthless enough.”  
   
“And you’re going to teach her to be ruthless.” Schuldig didn’t bother to keep the accusation out of his voice.  
   
“If I truly wanted that--” _//It would be more effective to separate her from Miss Tomoe. It would have been easy enough to do, just a word in the right ears. Miss Tomoe would have come to us much more willingly if we were her hope of rescuing Miss Fujimiya from life as a… research subject.//_  
   
Schuldig waved a dismissive hand. _Not that it’s not true, but…_  
   
“I don’t know yet why we need them,” Crawford admitted. His words were so quiet that Schuldig almost couldn’t hear them. “There’s something in the way of my seeing it, but we’ve always been going to need them. I just didn’t know it was them until Miss Tomoe manifested her power.” He removed his glasses and turned them over and over in his hands. “I miss Nagi and Farfarello, too, but this is the team we have now.” He frowned slightly. “Will have once we bring things together.”  
   
“So far, all we’re doing is spending money on them. We’d have been better off buying a pack of dogs.” _//At least dogs would be loyal in return.//_  
   
Crawford smiled. “I’ve asked Nagi to throw a few minor jobs our way so that we can shake things out and figure out how to work together. Mr Hidaka’s skill set calls for a much more direct approach, and I’m not sure yet how to make it mesh with Miss Tomoe’s abilities. Both young ladies have a great deal to learn about using what advantages they have. As your talents are similar, I’d have you teach Miss Tomoe, but--” He made a tossing away gesture.  
   
Schuldig stared at him. “That would go over really fucking well.” _We made her loathe us. Am I supposed to pretend I don’t know she fantasizes about killing both of us? She knows a hell of a lot about herbal poisons._ He didn’t bother sending those thoughts to Crawford. Either the man had noticed Schuldig’s reluctance to ingest anything Tomoe had touched or he hadn’t. “I don’t know why I’m bothering. You’re not going to listen to me anyway.”  
   
“You’ll enjoy what comes after we settle into our roles,” Crawford promised. “I thought we’d hunt Estet. Takatori Mamoru still wants them obliterated, but he’s promised not to use Kritiker resources.” Crawford smiled, showing teeth. “He’ll pay us from his personal funds, instead. That will bring us the monsters I promised Mr Hidaka he could kill. Takatori won’t be pleased to work with us, especially with… the expanded team, but he won’t try to cheat us, either, because of them.”  
   
 _And hunting Estet will, just incidentally, not cross any obvious ethical lines._ Schuldig narrowed his eyes. “You’re still playing with fire, and I don’t have any interest in getting burned.”  
   
“I’m very, very good at not getting burned.” Crawford put his glasses back on and picked up his book. He didn’t look up when Schuldig scowled at him and then left the room.


End file.
